The Baalshamin Temple in Palmyra, Syria.

Archaeologists like Phil Stinson, associate professor of classics at Kansas University, are appalled by this week’s news that the Islamic State group blew up a 2,000-year-old temple at Palmyra, Syria.

Adding to a sense of “helplessness,” Stinson said, experts and scholars can’t even fully assess the remains at Palmyra, as well as other cultural sites the group, also known as ISIS, has destroyed.

“The professional organizations in the archaeological community have, I would say, not been able to do very much so far, mainly because we don’t have access to those sites,” Stinson said. “They’re just too dangerous to go to right now. We can’t even explore the extent of the damage.”

Philip Stinson

Like the rest of the world, Stinson said, archaeologists are relying on propaganda images from the Islamic State group, news reports and reports from the Syrian government — which often don’t identify their source.

That’s frustrating, he said.

“This senseless destruction of sites has now been going on for over a year by ISIS,” he said. “They’ve been on a rampage, basically.”

Stinson specializes in Roman architecture and Greek and Roman cities. His primary fieldwork has been at the ruins of Aphrodisias in Turkey, adjacent to Syria on the north.

In Syria, Palmyra is significant because it’s one of the best-preserved ancient cities from the Roman era, he said. It has famous features like a colonnaded street, a theater and temples — including the small but well-preserved Baalshamin temple that apparently was destroyed on Sunday.

The Baalshamin Temple in Palmyra, Syria.

Baalshamin is the first structure in the Palmyra UNESCO World Heritage site to be destroyed, although ISIS recently destroyed two Islamic shrines nearby, according to national news reports. In a statement, UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova called the act “a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity.”

In March, ISIS destroyed Iraq’s ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, along with the ancient Assyrian capital of Khorsabad and a museum full of antiquities in Mosul.

Stinson said experts who study the Islamic State group’s motivation consider such acts cultural cleansing. In addition to killing people and forcing others to relocate, they are attempting to “erase” the memory, physical structures and cultural heritage of any group they don’t agree with.

Stinson said he continues to wonder, and worry, “When is this going to end? How is this going to end? Can it be stopped?”